


victory

by Hinn_Raven



Series: deprivation [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Brainwashing, Captivity, Flashbacks, Gen, Healing, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 15:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: It's taken them months, but Wash is finally back on his feet and ready to go back to where it all began. It's time to face his past. One way or another.





	victory

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit I can't believe we're at the end of this? This has been an incredible journey and I have been stunned and thrilled to have recieved so much support and feedback and love from my friends and readers alike. 
> 
> I originally planned to release this, the "good" version of the ending simultaneously with a "bad" version of the ending. However, I just couldn't get the bad ending to work in a way that I felt comfortable with. I might come back to it eventually, but I need a break from this universe I think.
> 
> Special thanks to Nina, who proofread this sucker for me, to Zalia and Ari, who helped me come up with this entire idea, and especially to papanorth, whose art started me on this journey, even if they had absolutely no intention of enabling something quite this dark. 
> 
> Warnings at this entry will be at the END of the fic, so check the endnotes if you think you'll need them.

It takes them six long, excruciating months to find the pirate base on Chorus.

Kimball shows the pictures that the scouts found. Wash doesn’t recognize anything until he sees the quick interior shot that Nguyen had risked her life to get.

Nguyen was on Grif’s squad. She knew that Wash had only ever seen the inside of the base. She’d guarded the door to keep the others away while Wash had had breakdowns in Grif’s room before. She understood better than most who weren’t Wash’s friends, what had happened to him.

Grif had been furious with her for taking that risk, but Wash couldn’t even listen to the scolding he was laying down, because he was staring at the familiar corridor.

“That’s it,” he says. “That’s—that’s their main camp.”

Kimball looks exhausted but triumphant. Nguyen looks smug but the expression quails under Grif’s glower.

“Felix has to be there,” Doyle frets. “We have had very few sightings of him since…”

“Since my capture,” Wash says, mouth dry.

* * *

_Felix places a hand on his shoulder and Wash leans in, eyes fluttering closed. “Special mission today, David,” he says. “You’re going out with Locus to kill some very important people.” A thumb brushes against his chin._

_Felix laughs as Wash tries to lean into Felix’s hand. “Locus is going to hold him down,” Felix whispers in Wash’s ear. “And you’re going to kill him slow. He’ll cry and beg and call your name, and you won’t even hesitate, because you’re not his friend. You’re a weapon. Our weapon. Aren’t you David?”_

_Wash nods, feeling warm and content at the combination of the touch and the name._

_“Felix,” Locus calls, and Felix moves away. Wash turns to Locus eagerly. Locus presses a hand against Wash’s lower back and starts to guide him towards the armory. “Perform well today, David, and you’ll be rewarded.”_

_Wash nods again. He pauses outside the armory, spotting the green line. Locus places a hand in his hair. “Good. You may cross.”_

_Wash feels the dread in his stomach dissipate as he gets permission and crosses the line. It’s been ages since he’s been punished for crossing a line. He doesn’t want to break his streak._

_Three technicians and the medic are waiting for him. Wash whines as Locus lets go of him but makes no move away from them, even if he hates what happens next._

_He hates the armor. It feels wrong to wear for reasons that Wash can’t explain or understand. Armor means he’s not going to be touched. He doesn’t like going out into the field, even if he’s well rewarded when he does well out there. But he doesn’t like it. Coming back is nice, but going out… less so._

_“Knees,” the medic drawls, and Wash goes down automatically, whimpering as the medic’s fingers prod his implants. He knows better than to fight them for touching them, knows better than to do anything when people touch his implants. But he doesn’t have to like it. “Good repair today. Proceed.”_

_Wash doesn’t scream when one of the technicians begins the process of attaching the wires from Wash’s helmet to his implants, even though it hurts. Wash only screams when given permission to these days. He doesn’t even scream in his sleep. He is silent as a stone, even as his hands clench tightly at his sides and his breathing quickens._

_Locus is armored when they’re finally done, and Wash falls into step behind him as they head towards the pelican._

_He doesn’t realize as he kneels by Locus’s feet in the pelican, Locus’s hand a comforting presence on the dome shaped helmet, that this is the day that it all ends._

* * *

“Since your rescue,” Doyle corrects kindly. “But he’s definitely still on planet.”

“Radio chatter confirms it,” Epsilon says and Wash determinedly doesn’t flinch at the sudden appearance. He’s better about Epsilon these days. He’s better about most things. “Felix is definitely in residence.”

Kimball looks triumphant. “Then we need to be ready. This could be it. If we can take enough of the pirates alive, we might be able to find a way _out_ of this.”

Everyone nods.

“We’ll need to plan carefully,” Carolina says, crossing her arms. She’s not wearing her armor, but the shirt she’s wearing is in her customary shade of teal and Wash’s breath doesn’t so much as speed up when he sees it anymore. The colors of Armonia are no longer an assault on his eyes. “We’ll pick squads carefully. We need to be prepared to work quickly but hit hard—”

“I’ll go,” Wash says without thinking.

The entire room freezes. “Wash?” Carolina says, staring at him.

“I’ll go,” Wash repeats, more firmly this time. He stares at the picture of the hallway.

He only made it to the hallway by the front entrance once before he broke.

* * *

 

_He’d given some pirates the slip mid-punishment. He’s being punished for crossing a blue line. Blue like Caboose’s armor, a thick strip of it across a doorway, and Wash had barreled across it, seeing a window on the other side. They’re been waiting for him with a tub of ice water and easy grins, mocking him as he skids to a halt, realizing what’s about to happen._

_Between dunkings, they aren’t been careful enough, leave him on the ground too long, coughing out the water in his lungs and shivering. He doesn’t want to move. He wants to curl into a ball and just submit until they stop hurting him because he’s not sure how much more of this he can **take**. _

_But Wash manages to break for it, scrambling to his feet as quietly as he can. There’s a teal line on the other side of the room, one that leads to another door. Getting to his feet, his lungs burning, he stumbles forward. Behind him the pirates are laughing about something. Possibly him. But they aren’t looking at him._

_He feels himself hesitate at the line but he forces himself forward despite the fear rising in his gut. Crossing teal lines; if he gets caught, he’ll be punished even more. But freedom is on the other side of the line._

_He steps across and starts to run. Behind him, he hears shouts—the pirates have noticed he’s missing. He’s in a hallway, and Wash can recognize the kind of heavily fortified door that’s the entrance or exit to a base. Wash lunges forward; freedom is on the other side of that door, if he can just make it—_

_Locus’s foot plants hard on his chest and Wash lets out a yelp from the floor as the breath leaves his body and he’s not sure how he even got on the floor. “Unfortunate,” he rumbles, and Wash desperately tries to squirm away. “You’d been improving.”_

_“Fuck you,” Wash gasps. “Fuck you—and your improvement and your training and—”_

_“Clearly the lessons aren’t taking properly,” Locus says. “One blue. One teal. And you escaped mid-punishment.”_

_Wash glares up at him. He wants to quail away but he refuses to. Defiance costs in the long run, but adrenaline rushes in his veins and the door is **so close** that right now, he doesn’t care.  _

_“You will learn,” Locus grabs him by the back of the neck and hauls him back to the room where the pirates had been. But they’re gone. All that was left was the tub and Felix, carrying a wooden box._

_“Don’t worry, Wash,” Felix says as Locus drags Wash back to the water. He kicks the box open and Wash sees him pull out various tools. “I think this time, it’ll stick with you.”_

_Locus pushes Wash under the water and everything is lost in a haze of pain and punishment that stretches a long, long time._

* * *

 

“I know the way,” Wash says now, almost glad that the scars from that session are on his back, where he can’t touch them. “I know that base. I can help.”

“Wash…” Tucker says.

“Tucker.” Wash shakes his head. Once, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. Tucker would say that Wash shouldn’t go and Wash would just nod and do what he said, and maybe even _agree_ because the handler was never wrong.

“I can fight,” he says instead of giving in. He raises his chin and looks at Kimball and Doyle evenly. “I’ve been out in the field and I know how to navigate the building.”

Kimball and Doyle exchange looks. Kimball’s fingers drum on the table. “Get clearance from Grey,” she orders. “I need to know you’re in good enough condition.”

The meeting ends, and Tucker walks up to him. “Sorry,” Tucker says. “I know this means a lot to you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Wash says. “I haven’t—it’s been a month.”

A month since Wash was _finally_ , _blessedly_ able to feed himself with his own hands. A month since Wash managed to cross a red line without throwing up. So what if he hasn’t been able to cross a blue line without problems or a teal line at all? He hasn’t gone into that dark, quiet place in his brain for ages, and the last few times he’s had bad days, they were shorter and Tucker and Grif could pull him out.

He hasn’t crawled in weeks. He ate a punishment food last night just to prove he could, and he didn’t flinch every time someone moved their hands.

He’s _better_.

Tucker deflates. “I know. I just… worry, you know? It’s Felix.”

Wash nods, pretending his heart isn’t racing at the thought of that. “I know. I won’t fight him.” He’ll let the others take care of Felix. If Wash faces him, it will be in a cell, with Felix strapped down so he can’t hurt anyone. He won’t be able to hurt Wash. He won’t get near him on the mission.

“Carolina will be there. You’ll be there. I’ll be fine.”

Tucker squeezes Wash’s bicep. “Yeah. You will be.”

Wash breathes deeply and brushes a hand over Tucker’s cheek. Tucker grins at him.

* * *

It’s a small, strategic team that breaks into the compound.

It looks… different, and it takes Wash ages to realize why.

The tape is all gone. None of the doors are blocked off anymore. Gone are the piles of discarded tape from the latest maze he was made to navigate. There’s nothing to indicate that this is actually the base that Wash remembers, besides the outline of it.

“Control room?” Carolina says, standing next to him. Grif is on his other side, Tucker at his back. Wash feels grounded, feels real, feels steady.

“Left,” he says. “That’s fastest.”

Wash’s mental map of the base is tangled up because the whole thing was never accessible to him. He’d probably been in every single room, but they were spaced out and overlapping. He’ll have to be careful.

They navigate quietly. They encounter a few patrols, who Carolina and Wash dispatch with ease. Wash doesn’t take their helmets off, doesn’t try to identify them as any of his particular tormentors. Each of them had favorite methods, favorite tricks to play on him when he was particularly docile. They’d reported him to Locus, punished him, beaten him, mocked him.

But they hadn’t broken him. Wash tries to take comfort in that.

Finally they get to the control room and Wash stops with a sudden whine.

A stripe of bright teal paint is crossed over the threshold.

“They know we’re here!” Carolina’s grip on his arm is like steel. “Bitters, Nguyen, get Washington out of here _now_!”

“Sir!” Bitters and Nguyen each grab an arm and start to drag him away. Wash goes, willing, heart pounding in his ears. _Trap, trap, this was a trap_ …

They move back the way they came and Wash stares.

On the floor of the room is a green apple.

Wash tastes bile, tries to look around the room to figure out who could have left this there, but then his radio crackles to life.

“ _Disable them.”_

There is never a question of not obeying that voice.

Without thinking, without hesitating, without doubting, Wash lashes out at Bitters, bringing his gun down on the back of his neck. Bitters crumples to the ground in an instant and Nguyen turns towards him, scrambling for her radio, for a weapon, but she’s not fast enough. She goes down just as quickly and Wash breathes heavily for a moment before he starts, realizing what he just did.

Falling to his knees he checks the pulses and vitals. They’re fine. Just disabled.

He runs his hands over his helmet, finding himself shaking. This isn’t… how did this… He glances over his shoulder. The apple is still there, on the floor.

He crosses the room towards it, picking it up. It’s innocuous. It’s nothing. It’s a fucking _apple_.

Apples mean fighting.

He looks over his shoulder at Bitters and Nguyen again, then back at his hand.

The lights in the next room flicker on, letting him see what’s ahead better. Another apple.

Swallowing, he keeps moving forward, through the maze of the base, following the signs until he comes to a door. And not just any door.

The door to his old cell.

Wash stares down at the green line and swallows. It’s just someone fucking with him. There’s no way this is a real green line. Locus is dead. Wash couldn’t protect him from Tucker, and Tucker had stabbed him and—

Wash’s feet moved forward without thinking, clutching his gun. He wanted to see what they were trying to hide, why they’d put down _that_ line.

The lights go off and Wash spins around, raising his gun, heart racing as he searches for his target, for—

“ _Washington, **get on your knees.**_ ” Locus’s voice, real and loud and terrifying, fills Wash’s ear and he lets out a cry as everything falls away; the others, just a hallway away, the knowledge that Locus is dead and gone, the fact that he’s free and doesn’t have to do what the voice says any more. But it all falls away because green fills his eyes and the voice fills his ears and Wash falls to his knees.

“ _Drop the weapon.”_

Wash flings the gun down and the lights come back up and Wash freezes, realizing what’s happened.

He’s kneeling in a circle of teal, his weapon halfway across the room, and Felix is standing in front of him, a knife in one hand, a box that’s clearly the source of Locus’s voice in the other.

“There you are,” Felix says.

“Felix,” Wash growls.

“Talking, too!” Felix says, tilting his head to one side. “Honestly, Tucker’s been spoiling you. We gave him a perfectly good weapon and look at you.” He shakes his head. “What a _waste_.”

Wash growls. “I’m not—”

“You’re not a weapon?” Felix got down on his haunches, at Wash’s eye level. “Prove it. Get off your knees. Cross that line.”

Wash stays where he is. Locus’s voice is physically weighing him down, threatening to crush him. He _knows_ Locus is dead. But the fear of him is oppressively thick and real and Wash can’t shake it off.

And even at the best of things, in the safety of Armonia, with Tucker and Grif on either side of him, Wash hasn’t been able to cross a teal line.

“That’s what I thought,” Felix laughs. His armor color is different, Wash realizes. He’s changed out his orange stripes for green. Locus green. Wash swallows and then recoils as Felix lashes out with the knife suddenly, cutting a stripe down Wash’s cheek. He scrambles away as far as the tape circle will allow, which isn’t far at all. The circle is suffocatingly small, keeping Wash pinned down. It should be humiliating, but the only emotion Wash can find right now is terror. He’s trapped again. Felix has him again. This has to be a nightmare.

“You got Locus killed, Washington,” Felix says softly. “I’m going to tear you apart. Piece. By. Piece.”

“The others will be here soon,” Wash says.

Felix laughs. “No. They won’t be. Sharkface is keeping them _nice_ and occupied, and really. Without you, they have no idea how to navigate this place. By the time they realize none of them have you, you’ll be gone.”

Wash shakes his head. Blood is dripping down his face from the cut and Felix laughs again. “I’ll break you like last time,” Felix says. “It’ll be _so easy_ now that I know exactly how.” He shakes his head. “You know how often I’ve tried that trick? Never worked as well as with you.” He reaches out and grabs a fistful of Wash’s hair and _pulls_ and Wash doesn’t yell. “You like this, don’t you? Not having to think. Just being _useful_ and only having to worry about if you get to hear the sound of your name again or taste good food.”

“No,” Wash says, but his mouth is dry.

“It normally takes years to get people to where you were,” Felix whispers. “ _Years_. You broke in _weeks_. Tell me, David—” Wash lets out a whine at that name, a name he hasn’t heard since his rescue, “—how long did it take for them to put you back together enough to pretend to be a person again? I bet it was longer than it took us to show you what you _really_ are.”

Wash tries to bite Felix but Felix just moves around him and grabs the back of his neck, pushing down until Wash’s chin is pressed against his chest. “ _Behave_ , Wash. You’re already going to be punished for a long time. Don’t drag it out.” The knife presses down through the fabric of his exposed part of his armor, and Wash bites back another cry. “Tell me how many lines you’ve crossed, Washy.”

Wash shakes his head. He knows exactly how many, that’s the problem, he knows how many and Felix knows he knows but he can’t—

Wash screams as Felix sinks the knife into his shoulder then yanks it back out. As soon as he can manage he strangles off the sound, not wanting to give Felix the satisfaction, but it’s far too late for that. “After I break you,” Felix says, wiping the blade clean on Wash’s hair before circling back in front of him. “I’m going to go and catch Tucker, how does that sound? And then I’ll kill him in front of you. That’s how it works, doesn’t it? Kill the handler and take his place?”

Wash feels his stomach lurch and his face go pale.

“If I catch the orange idiot too, I think I’ll have Sharky kill him. You remember Sharkface, don’t you? He broke your ribs that time Locus let him play. He’ll be a good handler, don’t you agree?”

Wash shakes his head. “Please,” he whispers. Not that begging has ever worked before, but Wash can’t stop himself. He can’t control his body.

“I thought you’d be grateful, Wash,” Felix says. “You don’t have to kill them. You’ll just be chained to a wall, unable to do a fucking thing, as Tucker bleeds out all slow. He’ll be staring at you, calling your name, asking for your help, and you’ll just _watch_.” Felix laughs, an unstable, dangerous sound. Locus’s death is affecting him, the more rational part of Wash realizes. Felix is falling apart at the seams, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. “I owe him for Locus too, don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of time with him before he dies.”

Wash feels his head fall. Despair feels like it’s pushing him to the ground, making him feel smaller and smaller, pushing him back towards that dark, pathetic corner of his mind that he never knew existed before Locus and Felix, and now he can’t make go away. He’s not quite there yet but he’s close, and Wash knows that if he crosses into that part of his mind now, with Felix here, he might never come out again. He’s not sure if he can come back a second time.

A noise goes off and Wash looks up. Felix sighs. “Well. I guess we need to get moving.” He holds out his hand and Wash’s blood runs cold at the sight of a familiar pill in Felix’s hand. “Let’s get you ready to go then, Wash.” He takes a step towards Wash.

Panic floods Wash’s veins. This is it. If Felix makes him swallow that pill, it’s all over. He won’t be able to fight back, he’ll be unable to do _anything_. Felix is about to pull him down again, to drown Wash in his own head, to make him scared and lonely and desperate for human touch again. He’ll eat out of hands and kneel at people’s feet and sleep stock-still and silent. If Felix puts that pill in his mouth his friends will die and Wash will stop being _Wash_ again.

But there’s nothing he can do, trapped in a circle, held in place by several of the first rules he was taught. Don’t disobey Locus. Don’t cross the lines.

He stares up at Felix.

This is it, Wash realizes. If he lets this happen, it’s over.

His hand grabs ahold of a knife hidden in one of the pieces of his armor.

 _No_.

He will not go back. He will not let Felix turn him into _that_ again. He will not let Felix kill Tucker, kill Grif, kill the others and make him watch.

The only thing in Wash’s way is a piece of teal tape and the voice of a dead man.

Wash lunges forward, out of the tape circle, and catches Felix with the knife in the leg. He’d stabbed Carolina there once, he knows, crippling her for months. A weak spot in the armor and the body combined. Felix goes down with a howl of pain and Wash knows he should be terrified, knows that there should be a wariness, because he’s supposed to _protect_ his handlers, not hurt them, but adrenaline rushes in Wash’s system and he no longer cares about that. There isn’t room for fear right now. Only survival.

Wash lunges for the pill now, because without the pill Felix can’t put him down, Wash refuses to go under, he’d rather make Felix kill him than swallow that pill, and Felix shouts, scrambling for the box with Locus’s voice and Wash moves for it too, not sure if he’ll be able to stop himself from surrendering if Locus orders him to. He brings down an armored fist on the box as hard as he can and it shatters. The pieces fly in all directions. It probably would have injured them if they weren’t in full armor, but as it is it’s nothing but a distraction.  

Felix lets out a howl of anger and slashes with his own knife, going for Wash It goes into Wash’s arm but Wash keeps going, slamming one hand against Felix’s helmet, pinning him to the ground, the other hand raising his knife. He scrambles, kneeling on Felix’s chest, breathing heavily.

“Fuck. You,” Wash says, before slitting Felix’s throat.

When Tucker and Grif find him later, he’s still sitting beside Felix’s body, holding the bloodied knife in one hand and the pill in the other.

“Wash!” Tucker yells, rushing towards him.

“I’m fine,” Wash says quietly. “I’m… it’s okay.”

“We can see that,” Grif says. A helmet hits the floor and when Wash looks up, it’s just in time to see Grif spit on Felix’s face. “Fuck you, asshole. Knew you weren’t worthy to wear orange.”

Wash feels a laugh beginning to bubble in his chest. He tries to stop it, because it’s not right, it’s not appropriate, Felix is—

Dead.

Felix is dead.

Wash doesn’t have to be afraid of him anymore.

He’s dead and can’t hurt Wash and can’t hurt his friends and everything is going to be okay now.

So Wash lets himself laugh. He lets himself laugh and laugh until there’s no breath left in him, until Tucker presses against his side and Grif places a hand on his shoulder and Wash finally stands up on his own two feet, tears of merriment and maybe a little bit of something else still falling down his face.

“Let’s go home, Wash,” Tucker finally says, and Wash nods, not because he has to, but because he _wants_ to. He won’t take orders he doesn’t want to ever again.

Pausing, he walks over to Felix’s body and pries off the helmet. He takes the pill between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it there thoughtfully. He never really got a chance to examine them before. It’s white and innocuous and Wash hates it more than anything right now.

He pries open Felix’s mouth and jams the pill down his throat.

It’s meaningless.

It means everything.

He _won_.

“I told you,” he whispers, too softly for Tucker or Grif to hear. “I won’t break.”

He stands and walks away from Felix and finally walks out the door to the base where he’d been kept for so long.

And there’s no teal line to keep him back.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Character death (Felix), blood, violence, and then the normal warnings for this verse; trauma, abuse, and captivity. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me this long! This universe ended up being longer and stranger and darker than I could have ever expected and I'm amazed so many of you made it this far. 
> 
> Until next time! <3


End file.
